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Danny Fain, brewer/cellarman for Ardent Craft Ales, has produced a handful of historically inspired brews. (Photo courtesy Ardent Craft Ales)
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American Heritage Chocolate, whose display at a recent Fire, Flour & Fork festival is pictured here, makes the chocolate blend Fain employs in the stout he brewed for The Valentine. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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The Valentine will offer free admission to the museum on Valentine's Day. New exhibitions include "Ballot Battle," which marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and depicts period viewpoints through the modern lens of social media, and "Voices From Richmond’s Hidden Epidemic," which uses portraits and biographies to humanize and tell the stories of HIV/AIDS victims in Richmond. (Photo courtesy The Valentine)
On Valentine’s Day, fans of craft beer, history and dogs can celebrate their passion for all three. Ardent Craft Ales, in collaboration with The Valentine, is hosting an exclusive one-day release of Historic Chocolate Stout on Feb. 14. Only available in the taproom from 3 to 10 p.m. that day, a portion of proceeds from the small-batch Colonial-inspired stout will benefit Richmond Animal Care & Control.
Before heading to Ardent for a pour, history lovers can tour the aptly named museum for free that day, and imbibers who want to know more about Richmond history will have the opportunity to chat with museum staff at Ardent during the event.
“I really love these historical institutions, and I want more people to know about them,” says Danny Fain, history buff and brewer/cellarman for Ardent Craft Ales. “Everyone in Richmond loves beer right now, right? Whatever we can do to hook people to check out these cool historical organizations, that’s [beer’s] hook.”
The stout marks the third historical brewing collaboration Ardent has produced with The Valentine. Fain has twice brewed Winter Warmer — a beer spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and allspice — for the museum’s annual Court End Christmas event in December. Sweetened with honey malt and brown sugar and balanced by English hops, the beer was such a hit that The Valentine approached Fain about brewing a beer for the holiday that shares its name.
Eric Steigleder, director of communications at The Valentine, says the collaboration is “a way to remind people that The Valentine has been in the community since 1898,” he says. “It’s a really cool [history] meets the beer side of things, which seems like the two favorite things in Richmond, beer and history."
They are certainly two of Fain’s favorite things: He has been combining history and brewing for years and views such collaborations as a way to benefit the brewery, as well as local museums and historical societies. In 2017, Fain partnered with a fellow Ardent brewer, Production Manager Chris Rommel, to craft a spruce beer inspired by ales brewed in the early 1800s; they used Norwegian spruce from Sneed’s Nursery to give the pale ale a citrus bite. It was one of the first beers to run out during the inaugural BrewHaHa craft beer festival hosted by the Virginia Historical Society that year.
And in 2018, in collaboration with the John Marshall House, Fain created a molasses beer, inspired by a 19th-century recipe featured in a popular cookbook by Mary Randolph, the former chief justice’s cousin. For a mash-up of brewing and science, Fain worked with Angie Hilliker, a University of Richmond molecular biologist, to extract yeast from a 200-year-old bottle of Madeira wine owned by John Marshall. The sample eventually could be used in modern recipes and will be genetically tested to determine its yeast type. Members of the public were invited to a demonstration of the resurrection of the centuries-old yeast, and Fain gave lectures on historic brewing.
The forthcoming Historic Chocolate Stout from Ardent is flavored by a 57% cacao semisweet chocolate along with red pepper flakes, orange, cinnamon, vanilla and chili peppers. Fain uses a blend created by American Heritage Chocolate, a historic chocolate brand from Mars Inc., and goes a little heavier on the oats to create a velvety, spiced beer around 6% ABV that he describes as “viscous” and “subdued.”
“[American Colonial chocolate] is different from the Swiss chocolate of the time,” Fain explains. “Most of it was not [quite] savory, but [it was] not as sweet.”
In the taproom during the Valentine's Day event, guests can also try handcrafted truffles from Chocolate Cravings made with Ardent creations Maple Dark Rye, Honey Ginger and Plum Gose.
On Feb. 14, a portion of sales from the stout, as well as all other Ardent brews purchased in the taproom, including packaged beer, will go toward the Must Love Dogs benefit for Richmond Animal Care and Control. On Feb. 12, The Valentine is also hosting the Circulate the Love blood drive in partnership with the American Red Cross.